750$ Intel NUC vs $6000 Aurender N200: I don't hear the difference

I didn’t read the entire thread but I saw this post and it didn’t stop me from trying the N200. The test conducted by the OP is flawed in several ways. 
1. As already mentioned above the N200 is optimized for USB. The spdif out sounds fine but it’s very audible how much better the USB is. (see the posts above talking about the N200 clock)

2. Tidal sound significantly worse than Qobuz with the N200, and I think with Aurender in general.

So for the comparison the N200 was set up in a worst possible way. But even in this configuration I would expect it to beat the nuc. I tried streaming with my mac mini and it doesn’t hold a candle yo the n200. 

It’s always YMMV.

Firstly, please try a Roon rock on nuc not a Mac mini.

Secondly, The delta between an Aurender and a NUC with Roon rock  and Quboz should be far greater than delta between tidal and Quboz.

Third, it really depends on the DAC, that’s my conclusion. Perhaps the Nagra DAC does 95% of heavy lifting that typically streamers do with other perhaps lesser DACs? Who knows? 
 

by all means spend the 6k on the Aurender, but my humble suggestion would be to try a Roon rock on an nuc first. It cost as much as an audiophile usb cable for gods sake :)

@essrand 

Figured out why Tidal sounded significantly worse than Qobuz. I incidentally compared MQA version on Tidal to Qobuz hi-res. None of my digital front end components unfold MQA so it was coming across similar to what the mp3 would sound. There’s still a difference between Tidal 16/44 and Qobuz 16/44 but it isn’t that great. 

And I agree, DAC will matter as well as the rest of your system. But the way you had tested using two different services and two different interface types still remains sub optimal. 

I’ve had a similar experience, although not with components that are as expensive.  My current setup of a MacBook Pro streaming via Tidal or Qobuz native apps into a Denafrips Hermes and Pontus II sounds better than the HiFi Rose 250a they replaced.  The Pontus by itself outperformed the dedicated streamer.  I just recently added the Hermes.

jastralfu.

What USB cable were using from your MacBook, when you made your comparisons?